One Week, Many Ripples - Measuring the Impacts of the Fall Reading Week on Student Stress

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay

Interdisciplinary research examines how introducing a one-week fall break affects university student stress and mental health. Undergraduate students completed surveys capturing stressors and perceived stress before and after the break, supported by focus groups. Salivary samples were also collected to profile metabolic hormones—cortisol and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)—from first-year male engineering students, compared with peers at a similar university without a fall break. Results show a lower cortisol-to-DHEA ratio after the break and mixed self-reported stress experiences.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages9

Reading Time23 min

AccessFree to download

Background and Rationale

National student mental health concerns

Study Design and Measures

Surveys and focus groups

Hormone sampling and comparison group

Findings and Interpretation

Hormone-based changes in stress markers

Survey self-reports: mixed experiences

Claimed novelty of the approach

One Week, Many Ripples: Measuring the Impacts of the Fall Reading Week on Student Stress Heather Poole, Ayesha Khan, and Michael Agnew McMaster University 2017 CELT Vol X [celt. uwindsor.ca](celt. uwindsor.ca) [www.stlhe.ca](www.stlhe.ca) DOI: 10. 22329/celt.v10i0 .4757 More and more Canadian post-secondary institutions are introducing a fall break into their term calendars. In 2015, a full week fall break was introduced at our university in order to enhance academic performance and improve mental health amongst students. Our interdisciplinary team surveyed undergraduate students at our university about their experience of the fall break, collected standardized measures of experienced stressors and perceptions of stress before and after the break, and hosted severalfocus groups to develop a detailed narrative of students’ experience. Stress can also be assessed through non-invasive hormone measures. We collected saliva samples to profile metabolic hormones, cortisol, and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), from first-year male engineering students in order to document possible changes in their stress levels before and after the week-long break. This group was compared to male engineering students at a similar university that does not hold a fall break. Students exhibited a lower ratio of cortisol to DHEA after a fall break than those that did not experience a break. Our survey results indicate that the majority of students thought the fall break was a positive experience. However, self-reports of stress show a more complex picture, with many students reporting increased perceived stress after the break. Additionally, a portion of students reported that the fall break was a negative experience. To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first of its kind to use a mixed-methods approach to examine the impacts of a fall break. The mental health and wellness of university and college students has received recent attention as popular media reports and empirical research indicates increased rates of stress and mental illness in this group (Booth, Sharma, & Leader, 2015; Chiose, 2016; Lunau, 2012). Indeed, post-secondary students have long reported higher levels of stress than the general population (Adlaf, Gliksman, Demers, & Newton-Taylor, 2001) . In 2013, a large-scale survey assessed well-being across 30 post-secondary institutions in Canada (American College Health Association, 2013) . A total of 89.3% of respondents felt overwhelmed, 86.9% felt exhausted, and 56. 5% felt immense anxiety. A majority of students (56.6%) reported academic issues as traumatic or very difficult to handle. A larger follow-up survey in 2016 captured similar responses from 43,000 students in 41 Canadian institutions (Canadian Association of College and University Student Services, 2016) . These survey data support previous trends indicating that the mental health of our students is in crisis. Anxiety and depression were reported to be the most common mental illnesses experienced by students. Moreover, 13% of survey respondents had considered suicide within the last 12 months: a 3. 5% increase from 2013 (Canadian Association of College and University Student Services, 2016) . Although alarming, these data are not surprising. Post- secondary students are part of a special cohort, since onset of mental illness commonly occurs between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four (Eisenberg, Gollust, Golberstein, & Hefner, 2007; Rao, Hammen, & Daley, 1999), and the stressors affecting their mental health may be different than those impacting their non-student counterparts or others in a different lifestage. According to current estimates, nearly 2 million students are registered at post-secondary institutions across Canada (Statistics Canada, 2016; Universities Canada, 2016) . Colleges and universities are now paying special attention to the mental wellbeing of their students. Multiple initiatives aim to educate students and facilitate discussion

FAQs

What problem does the study address?

The study investigates whether a one-week fall reading week (fall break) reduces students’ stress and supports mental health.

How did the researchers measure stress?

They used surveys and focus groups to assess perceived stress and stressors, and collected saliva samples to measure metabolic hormones cortisol and DHEA.

What were the main results after the break?

Hormone profiling showed a lower cortisol-to-DHEA ratio after the break, while self-reports indicated a more complex pattern with both increased and decreased perceived stress among students.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay